TMSA Champions

Don Friddell serves on the TMSA Board of Directors as chairman of the Education Committee and has been part of this committee for nearly three years. Friddell brings an experienced eye to the TMSA through his 14 years marketing Kenco Logistics and his prior experience marketing in the financial industry.

Based out of Chattanooga, TN, Friddell is a 14-year industry veteran starting his transportation career as Kenco’s one-person marketing operation in 2003. Since then, Friddell has grown a lean and talented marketing team focused on promoting the Kenco brand through both internal efforts and work with retained agencies. Friddell notes that this approach is one that “practices what they preach” in that they, like many of their customers outsourcing logistics, outsource key initiatives to expert partners. Doing so has allowed their marketing effort to grow without significant additions to headcount. The two best pieces of advice Friddell has received fit this strategy nicely with the top one being to “be tenacious,” something that has clearly shown through Friddell’s resourcefulness, experience and growth. The second piece of advice is equally important to a lean team is to be “on-time, over perfect.”

Currently serving as a member of the TMSA board, Friddell is head of the Education Committee and responsible for the 2018 TMSA Logistics Marketing & Sales Conference to be held this June in Fort Myers, Florida. A successful 2017 event has proven to be Friddell’s greatest accomplishment as a TMSA volunteer and one that he plans to repeat this summer. Despite the learning curve and pressure involved with leading the education committee, Friddell was thrilled with the results of the 2017 conference citing 96% of attendees saying they’d recommend the event to others. Having been a member of TMSA for most of his transportation career, Friddell can’t say enough about the value of the organization. His key turning point though was when he began volunteering. While learning had always been a great aspect of the TMSA, Friddell notes that volunteering has added tremendous amounts of fun and networking to his experience. His advice to any new member is “Volunteer. Find a place to plug in.” Demonstrating his enthusiasm both for volunteering and the TMSA, Friddell was named TMSA volunteer of the year in 2017.

When asked about his life outside of marketing, creativity remained a strong point and includes being an artist and home brewer. Most importantly though, Friddell stands behind the importance of family in his life and notes being a parent as the top priority for him.